Following the post-holiday blip, HRV has been fairly stable even considering my cold in mid-September. Mood and stress though have been an issue, particularly mood, most notably post holiday (expected) but also through the most part of September.
In my examination of the challenges of recovery, this is, for me, the strongest and trickiest feeling to deal with: the insecurity of doing what is perceived as ‘nothing’. Training feels like taking control, being active, pursuing your goals and making use of your life; sitting still does not.
Full time Sprint Swimmer Georgina Gardner Stockley introduces her upcoming blog series ‘Why does it remain so difficult to recover?’
Prof Paul Laursen & Dr Phil Maffetone have consistently preached the message that elite level performance needn’t be at the cost of your long term health. Their recent opinion piece highlighting why is summarised here.
When we launched ithlete in 2009, early users struggled to believe that a metric as insightful as heart rate variability (HRV) could be measured in less than 60 seconds. Here we explain why it can!
The Australian Institute of Sport monitored 33 international track and field athletes across 5 seasons. They found injury and illness were major factors for success.
Andrew Tamplin has created and shared a great infographic giving us an insight in to his daily training cycle and decision making process.
‘The morning recovery test effects all other aspects of the daily cycle, the simple fact is that if you are not recovered sufficiently from your previous workout, work or other life stress then you are not going to be training effectively.’
Having spent 6 months building up to the 300 mile ride, it was time for backing off a little…
This month see’s Andy and his team take on the much anticipated 300 mile Charity Ride!
Few people who use or follow wearable tracking tech will have failed to hear that Fitbit is facing multiple lawsuits in the US alleging a lack of accuracy in the heart rate (HR) monitoring function of devices such as the Fitbit Surge ™ and Charge HR™. Here is a summary of the research examining these claims.
HRV has been recognised as an index of stress and vulnerability to stress, so it’s no big surprise that researchers have been looking for possible relationships between higher HRV and a longer lifespan.
In summary, I think the preparation for this event was a success – especially the many hours of MAF endurance training, and the aerodynamic improvements to both my position and the bike itself. I think diet was the only area I didn’t get quite right, and perhaps I need to gain confidence that I can perform on a low(er) carb diet on a 100m event first.
I have now begun my taper, with just a week to go before the 312km event in Mallorca next Saturday. I’m already in the centre zone of the Pro Training Guide, and expect to move rightwards during the week as my recovery continues to improve.
It is very important to take into account the trends reported by both the Week and Month Change indications, as these are the ones that will report an increasing and unsustainable imbalance between stress and recovery.
The ithlete team have a number of events coming up so we wanted to share a short post letting you know where you can catch us!
Hopefully this is a sign of improved fitness and my body getting used to the increasing workload, adaptation, and therefore recovering quicker.
This post covers two 15 week training cycles of a 22 year old, female, short sprint (50m) swimmer leading up to a weekend of competition. The athlete has been training seriously for four years.
In this second interview between Simon Wegerif and Dr Phil Maffetone they cover the MAF method. Including how this training method can improve performance, fat burning efficiency and your heart rate variability (HRV).
Simon is well under way preparing for the Mallorca 312, increasing volume and adjusting diet are in focus in this post.
I had been using ithlete for several years as part of my own training monitoring and found the basic data helpful as an additional weapon in my armoury. So when I was given the opportunity to use an ithlete Team App in conjunction with my coaching role for the TORQ Track Team I was keen to see what it could bring to the table.
Despite a great deal of discussion about, and anecdotal evidence to support the benefits of a low carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) diet, there have been few studies examining the degree to which athletes’ metabolisms have been altered to take advantage of this dramatic change in fuel for exercise.
In our ‘food obsessed society’ we are constantly bombarded by different trendy diets which often come with outlandish claims of great benefits. The one principle that professionals in the industry do seem to agree on these days is that there is no one diet that fits all.
Training weeks 5 through to 7 incorporate a number of group training sessions ahead of a scheduled rest week starting late February. How will this effect the HRV? Read on to find out.
Users of ithlete Pro can now sync with TrainingPeaks to gain further insight in to how training effects their HRV and to base training decisions on objective recovery.
Internationally recognised expert on health, nutrition and performance Dr Phil Maffetone talks all things LCHF.
PhD candidate Angela Spontelli Gisselman PT, DPT, OCS details the who, what and why of her own recent research in to overuse injuries and the ANS.
You’ll get more from ithlete if you use the subjectives! By tracking and correlating the suggested subjective metrics you will be able to better understand what is influencing your stress and recovery levels. Here are our top tips for using the subjective indicators.
Using the Framingham data this paper focuses on heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate as predictors of cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, and the so-called metabolic syndrome that also includes obesity and blood fat levels.
May saw Andrew Tamplin take on base training using ithlete Pro as his coach. A wise choice!
Our latest research summary takes a look at a case study of heart rate variability (HRV) in two elite triathletes, one successful, one overtrained
Many of us operate on less sleep than we would like (up to 1/3rd according to the American Sleep Disorders Association), but how many of us realize the impact sleep deprivation is having on our health and on our ability to enjoy life?
Taking a look at how elite professional soccer teams, amongst others, are prescribing naps to improve performance and make marginal gains.
How important is routine and time of measurement when tracking heart rate variability? Very! And here is why…
Researchers at the University of Salzburg, Austria and the University of California wanted to test the idea that if daytime heart rate variability (HRV) is strongly linked to physical and mental health, would HRV also be a predictor of healthy sleep?
This is an interesting study that suggest that HRV has the potential to deliver a sport independent comparable training load number, a goal long sought after by sports scientists and coaches.
A very interesting post looking at predicting team sports performance using heart rate variability
Our Tuesday Tip this week looks at getting the most out of your ithlete Pro data using multiple devices.